Couple questions: first, how do customize your AMP settings in the Service Menu? I've found the expert settings let you set it at low, medium, or high for the calibration setting, but didn't find how to alter the numeric setting for those levels. I'm hating the ramped up settings on the new firmware (1007), and would love to have a lower setting than the new "low" for DirecTV shows and movies.

Also, those screenshots look like they're from the new Fantastic Four movie, which I just watched last night. Maybe it was the martini I had, but the AMP on low still bugged the hell out of me in that movie, were you as disturbed as I was?

Hey Zerog, on the 71 warm2 just looks terrible, i.e. way too warm. What benefits do you see to warm2 on these sets?

Yeah on the 71 i had it was the same thing, I use to have it on normal. But with this 750 you can tell pretty easily that anything cooler than warm1 is too blue. I just got a spyder2 colorimeter and using hfcr, I found I was wrong with warm2, the red and green is good, but the blue is too low. I got all the colors near 100% right out of the box at the warm1 setting. Ill post all my results later when i finish.

Quote:

Originally Posted by studdad

Excellent Blacks. It looks like you took the picture in a dark room too,,,is that correct?

Yup the room was pitch black. I have to admit that i did cheat a bit because I had both dynamic contrast and black adjust on "low". Which i've since turned both off. So the black's aren't quite as deep, but much better shadow detail. After better calibrations i'm certain I can get both the deep blacks and the detail.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spfhelmiii

Couple questions: first, how do customize your AMP settings in the Service Menu? I've found the expert settings let you set it at low, medium, or high for the calibration setting, but didn't find how to alter the numeric setting for those levels. I'm hating the ramped up settings on the new firmware (1007), and would love to have a lower setting than the new "low" for DirecTV shows and movies.

Also, those screenshots look like they're from the new Fantastic Four movie, which I just watched last night. Maybe it was the martini I had, but the AMP on low still bugged the hell out of me in that movie, were you as disturbed as I was?

Well AMP is a hate it or love it feature, so if you dont like it then you dont like it, there nothing else to it, lol. But yeah thats fantastic 4 part 2

Contrast: 90 / Backlight 3-4
According to the guide, the contrast levels should be between 50-60 FTL. With the default, I got measurements upwards of 70. After taking several readings, the best backlight is between 2-5 depending on your lighting, optimum would be 3-4 and the contrast at 92. This setting gave me just decimals over 59 FTL with the backlight at 4 and just over 50 at 2. You can go to 5, but that's if you're room is extremely lit up. And I prefer to keep it at 3 instead of down to 2 in the dark just to get a bit more pop.

The luminance curve was pretty spot on

Brightness: 43 / Gamma: -2
This was set according to the contrast measurements. I still want to work on this a bit more. The entire combination between contrast, brightness, gamma and backlight can be confusing. But i'm getting the hang of it now. Gamma at -2 was the only way I was able to get the great black depth and shadow detail while maintaining the contrast.

The gamma curve was right at 2.2 between 30-80 IRE. Below 30 IRE the gamma curve went down to 2.1, while above 80 IRE the curve went up to 2.3, so I'm pretty happy with that as well.

Color: 43 / Tint: 50/50
I used the Red & Cyan test pattern from the AVS-BD. According to the measurements this is pretty precise.

Greyscale:
The greyscale readings were incredible, according to the guide, lol. The only thing was that I could not get a proper reading at 0-10 IRE because of the colorimeter so I don't have values for those. But check this, between 30-80 IRE, "all" of my deltaE measurements came in under 1. Yes, all less than 1. The only deltaE values I got above 1, were at the 20, 90, & 100 IRE, and they were not far behind. at 90 & 100 IRE I got a deltaE of less than 3 for both. And the reading that was furthest off, was at 20 IRE, which had a deltaE of 5, which isn't even considered being off, lol.

On my set, your settings were a bit too warm. I changed the Warm setting to Normal and it looked good. I got a lot of yellow with your settings. Just a difference in tv's. I did a quick adjustment on my tv last night, and what I liked best was the following (just a quick adjust, so more to follow later):

Edit: oh, and film mode off. One thing I do wish they would allow is DNIe in standard mode. It gives a little extra pop in Dynamic Mode. I adjusted Dynamic Mode and got it close to my Standard Mode, except it was a little cooler, and without the ability to change the white balance, I couldn't warm it up a bit. I liked the extra punch that DNIe gave it when turned on, but just too cool for my taste.

It's not gonna do any good, all the colors are completely off when i take a picture of it. I decided to make a few changes since in the post I made, so check is again above, I noted the changes

But just to make all the Kuro lovers quiet down a bit, here's some shots

BTW, what are these shots of cable/sattelite HD channel or Blu ray? Blacks are pretty immpresive but I gotta ask, especially when looking at your current settings with gamma at -3, are you truly getting good shadow detail without any black crush?

BTW, what are these shots of cable/sattelite HD channel or Blu ray? Blacks are pretty immpresive but I gotta ask, especially when looking at your current settings with gamma at -3, are you truly getting good shadow detail without any black crush?

They're from Blu-Ray, fantastic 4 part 2. But when I took those pictures I had completely different settings then the last ones I posted. If you scroll up more you can see my first settings which are what I had on when I took those pictures. In those pictures I was crushing blacks a bit because I had black adjust set to low.
About my current settings with the Gamma at -3, no i'm not crushing blacks, according to the calibration curves, it's pretty much dead accurate to the reference curves of 2.2 gamma, and the luminance curve is dead accurrate as well.

Also you have to keep in mind that those settings are for my tv, and probably won't look good on anyone else's tv. Which is pretty much evidenced by studdad's settings for his tv

On my set, your settings were a bit too warm. I changed the Warm setting to Normal and it looked good. I got a lot of yellow with your settings. Just a difference in tv's. I did a quick adjustment on my tv last night, and what I liked best was the following (just a quick adjust, so more to follow later):

Edit: oh, and film mode off. One thing I do wish they would allow is DNIe in standard mode. It gives a little extra pop in Dynamic Mode. I adjusted Dynamic Mode and got it close to my Standard Mode, except it was a little cooler, and without the ability to change the white balance, I couldn't warm it up a bit. I liked the extra punch that DNIe gave it when turned on, but just too cool for my taste.

I know you mentioned once you like to use dynamic contrast. I've always had it on low also because I like it's effect also. But I actually tried to calibrate the set with it on low. I did get better contrast with a bit deeper blacks, but with it on, it was impossible to get the colors very accurate. So just so you can know what the compromise is. I eventually have it turned off now

About Dynamic mode, in case you didn't know, the only difference in settings between dynamic and standard, is that dynamic has both black adjust and dynamic contrast set to "high". Everything else is pretty much the same.

I'm gonna try and do a calibration in standard mode with a normal color temperature, and maybe try dynamic contrast on low again to see is there's a way to make it work.

Isn't it funny even though it's the same tv for the settings to be so different

I've had 2 650 sets and this 750. I used the HD DVD DVE (the original, not Basics) and then verified with the same pattern on the Blu-ray DVE Basics disc, and the color blocks on 70% gray pattern with the Blue Mode on. On all 3 sets, all blue blocks matched the blue background with Color at 52 and Tint at 50/50. I'm not sure why anyone would play with the Tint setting on these sets.

I've had 2 650 sets and this 750. I used the HD DVD DVE (the original, not Basics) and then verified with the same pattern on the Blu-ray DVE Basics disc, and the color blocks on 70% gray pattern with the Blue Mode on. On all 3 sets, all blue blocks matched the blue background with Color at 52 and Tint at 50/50. I'm not sure why anyone would play with the Tint setting on these sets.

Agreed, I get perfect tint measurements on the default 50/50 no matter what else I change.

I know you mentioned once you like to use dynamic contrast. I've always had it on low also because I like it's effect also. But I actually tried to calibrate the set with it on low. I did get better contrast with a bit deeper blacks, but with it on, it was impossible to get the colors very accurate. So just so you can know what the compromise is. I eventually have it turned off now

About Dynamic mode, in case you didn't know, the only difference in settings between dynamic and standard, is that dynamic has both black adjust and dynamic contrast set to "high". Everything else is pretty much the same.

I'm gonna try and do a calibration in standard mode with a normal color temperature, and maybe try dynamic contrast on low again to see is there's a way to make it work.

Isn't it funny even though it's the same tv for the settings to be so different

Yeah, I know there is a trade-off with Dynamic Contrast, but just love it. One other thing with Dynamic Mode, it does allow you to turn on DNIe, which you cannot do with Standard.

That would be great if you did a Standard mode. Then I could try that out and see how close it is.

Yeah, from what i have found, and from what all the pro calibrators say as well, each tv is slightly different. It is good to get someones calibrations to use as a starting point, but you will almost always have to tweak a little bit to get it right on another set. Plus, you have to look at preferences. Different people like different temps, brightness, etc.

I've had 2 650 sets and this 750. I used the HD DVD DVE (the original, not Basics) and then verified with the same pattern on the Blu-ray DVE Basics disc, and the color blocks on 70% gray pattern with the Blue Mode on. On all 3 sets, all blue blocks matched the blue background with Color at 52 and Tint at 50/50. I'm not sure why anyone would play with the Tint setting on these sets.

I agree, tint is pretty much dead on. I adjusted one click just because I wanted to add a little more red.

I know each LCD can vary, which is why I was surprised to see that I had 3 of these LCDs across 2 models that were best set to 52 for color. This also makes me curious that some of you are lowering Color. What are you doing to determine your Color setting?

Contrast: 92 / Backlight 3-4
According to the guide, the contrast levels should be between 50-60 FTL. With the default, I got measurements upwards of 70. After taking several readings, the best backlight is between 2-5 depending on your lighting, optimum would be 3-4 and the contrast at 92. This setting gave me just decimals over 59 FTL with the backlight at 4 and just over 50 at 2. You can go to 5, but that's if you're room is extremely lit up. And I prefer to keep it at 3 instead of down to 2 in the dark just to get a bit more pop.

The luminance curve was pretty spot on

Brightness: 43 / Gamma: -3
This was set according to the contrast measurements. I still want to work on this a bit more. The entire combination between contrast, brightness, gamma and backlight can be confusing. But i'm getting the hang of it now. Gamma at -3 was the only way I was able to get the great black depth and shadow detail while maintaining the contrast.

The gamma curve was right at 2.2 between 30-80 IRE. Below 30 IRE the gamma curve went down to 2.1, while above 80 IRE the curve went up to 2.3, so I'm pretty happy with that as well.

Color: 42 / Tint: 50/50
I used the Red & Cyan test pattern from the AVS-BD. According to the measurements this is pretty precise.

Greyscale:
The greyscale readings were incredible, according to the guide, lol. The only thing was that I could not get a proper reading at 0-10 IRE because of the colorimeter so I don't have values for those. But check this, between 30-80 IRE, "all" of my deltaE measurements came in under 1. Yes, all less than 1. The only deltaE values I got above 1, were at the 20, 90, & 100 IRE, and they were not far behind. at 90 & 100 IRE I got a deltaE of less than 3 for both. And the reading that was furthest off, was at 20 IRE, which had a deltaE of 5, which isn't even considered being off, lol.

Hey zerog6, any chance you can look into your service menu & look into WB the menu (White Balance).

Seems like some models have different values even between the same size & firmware.

Alright, I just did a calibration with the set on Standard Mode, and a Normal color temperature.

In terms of greyscale, I got the set pretty much just as accurate to D65 as I had on Warm1. There was more fluctuation in the measurements, and they weren't as accurate across the IRE range, but all the numbers were still under a deltaE of 10, and most under a deltaE of 5. So in general, it was not quite as accurate as Warm1, but I doubt you can visually tell the difference.

Now, Dynamic Contrast, and Black Adjust. In terms of color and luminance accuracy, this throws everything wayy off. Either of the 2 makes the gamma and luminance graphs go literally off the charts. So there's no way that you can get an accurate picture using those enhancements.

Color & Gamma controls are literally useless when dynamic contrast is on, which leads to some of the inaccuracy.

HOWEVER, to my eyes, Dynamic Contrast still looks really nice. So even though it does that, I still consider using it depending on what I'm watching.

All of the rest of the settings are the same except Gamma's at 0 for these settings

I know each LCD can vary, which is why I was surprised to see that I had 3 of these LCDs across 2 models that were best set to 52 for color. This also makes me curious that some of you are lowering Color. What are you doing to determine your Color setting?

I just put color where it "looked" right to me. Not over-saturated and not too dull.

Alright, I just did a calibration with the set on Standard Mode, and a Normal color temperature.

In terms of greyscale, I got the set pretty much just as accurate to D65 as I had on Warm1. There was more fluctuation in the measurements, and they weren't as accurate across the IRE range, but all the numbers were still under a deltaE of 10, and most under a deltaE of 5. So in general, it was not quite as accurate as Warm1, but I doubt you can visually tell the difference.

Now, Dynamic Contrast, and Black Adjust. In terms of color and luminance accuracy, this throws everything wayy off. Either of the 2 makes the gamma and luminance graphs go literally off the charts. So there's no way that you can get an accurate picture using those enhancements.

Color & Gamma controls are literally useless when dynamic contrast is on, which leads to some of the inaccuracy.

HOWEVER, to my eyes, Dynamic Contrast still looks really nice. So even though it does that, I still consider using it depending on what I'm watching.

All of the rest of the settings are the same except Gamma's at 0 for these settings

Is anyone else using Blue Mode to dial in Tint / Hue? Seems the best and quickest way to go w/ SMPTE patterns.....

I do. On my 2 650 sets and my current 750, all 3 sets ended up with Color 52 and Tint 50/50, and all 3 on multiple firmware versions. I'll also be playing with a friend's new 52a650 this weekend, and I expect the same result.

I'm puzzled that some are trying to adjust these 2 settings by eye. I prefer a TV that looks correct.